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A re-evaluation of the Type D personality effect
Lodder,P.
Lodder,P.
Abstract
Objective Type D personality has been associated with various medical and psychosocial outcomes. Type D's underlying personality traits negative affectivity (NA) and social inhibition (SI) are hypothesized to either additively (NA + SI) or synergistically (NA ∗ SI) affect an outcome. As some of the methods used to assess a Type D effect have been criticized in the past, this study aimed to investigate for all commonly used methods their tendency of producing false positive Type D effect. Method 324,000 datasets were generated using a Monte Carlo Simulation. Each dataset was analyzed using various methods to assess a Type D effect. Each method's performance was assessed in terms of absolute bias and the percentage of false positive findings. An online application was developed where readers can easily experiment with this simulation. Results Our simulation showed that all commonly used methods risk producing false positive Type D effects. The only method with adequate false positive rates included the continuous NA and SI main effects, as well as their quadratic effects and their interaction. Conclusion All commonly used methods to assess a Type D personality effect showed inflated false positive rates in realistic simulation scenarios. All earlier research based only on these methods should be reconsidered.
Description
Date
2020
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Research Projects
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Keywords
ANXIETY, DISEASE, Dichotomization, EVENTS, HEALTH BEHAVIORS, Interaction, LIFE, MORTALITY, Monte Carlo Simulation, NEGATIVE AFFECTIVITY, Quadratic, SOCIAL INHIBITION, Type D personality, VARIABLES
Citation
Lodder, P 2020, 'A re-evaluation of the Type D personality effect', Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 167, 110254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110254